CALHOUN'S POLITICAL STRATEGY. 353 against their own convictions. Nevertheless, Sir, it must be acknowledged that what appears to be a sudden, as well as a great change, naturally produces a shock. Sudden movements of the affections, whether personal or political, are a little out of nature. Several years ago, Sir, some of the wits of England wrote a mock play, intended to ridicule the unnatural and false feeling, the sentimentality, of a certain German school of literature. In this play, two strangers are brought together at an inn. While they are warming themselves at the fire, and before their acquaintance is yet five minutes old, one springs up, and exclaims to the other, “A sudden thought strikes me! Let us swear an eternal friendship!” This affectionate offer was instantly accepted, and the friendship duly sworn, unchangeable and eternal! Now, Sir, how long this eternal friendship lasted, and in what manner it ended, those who wish to know may learn by referring to the play.* But it seems to me, Sir, that the honourable member has carried his political sentimentality a good deal higher than the flight of the German school; for he appears to have fallen suddenly in love, not with strangers, but with opponents. Here we had all been contending against the progress of executive power, and more particularly, and most strenuously, against the projects and experiments of the administration upon the currency. The honourable member stood among us, not only as an associate, but as a leader. We thought we were making some headway. The people appeared to be coming to our support and our assistance. The country had been roused; every successive election weakening the strength of the adversary, and increasing our own. We were in this career of success carried strongly forward by the current of public opinion, and only needed to hear the cheering voice of the honourable member, "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!" and we should have prostrated for ever this anti-constitutional, anticommercial, anti-republican, and anti-American policy of the administration. But, instead of these encouraging and animating accents, behold! 4 This play, entitled The Rovers, was the joint-product of several hands, the chief of them being, as was said, George Canning, the celebrated statesman, who became Prime Minister in 1827. The issue of the "friendship" in question may be guessed from the circumstance, that the parties to it are ladies, who soon find out that they have both been married to one and the same man. in the very crisis of our affairs, on the very eve of victory, the honourable member cries out to the enemy, "Hollo! a sudden thought strikes me! I abandon my allies. Now I think of it, they have always been my oppressors. I abandon them; and now let you and me swear an eternal friendship!" Such a proposition, from such a quarter, Sir, was not likely to be long withstood. The other party was a little coy, but, upon the whole, nothing loath. After proper hesitation, and a little decorous blushing, it owned the soft impeachment, admitted an equally sudden sympathetic impulse on its own side; and, since few words are wanted where hearts are already known, the honourable gentleman takes his place among his new friends amidst greetings and caresses, and is already enjoying the sweets of an eternal friendship. Purpose of that Strategy. THE honourable member proceeds to say that never was there before, and never, probably, will there be again, so fair an opportunity for himself and his friends to carry out their own principles and policy, and to reap the fruits of their long and arduous struggle. These principles and this policy, Sir, be it remembered, he represents, all along, as identified with the principles and policy of Nullification. And he makes use of this glorious opportunity by refusing to join his late allies in any further attack on those in power, and rallying anew the old State-rights party to hold in check their old opponents, the National Republican party. Mr. President, stripped of its military language, what is the amount of all this, but that, finding the administration weak, and likely to be overthrown, if the opposition continued with undiminished force, he went over to it, and joined it; intending to act, himself, upon nullification principles, and to compel the Southern members of the administration to meet him on those principles ? He confesses, Sir, that, in thus abandoning his allies, and taking a position to cover those in power, he perceived a shock would be created which would require some degree of resolution and firmness. In this he was right. A shock, Sir, has been created; yet there he is. This administration, Sir, is represented as succeeding to the last PURPOSE OF THAT STRATEGY. 355 by an inheritance of principle. It professes to tread in the footsteps of its illustrious predecessor. It adopts, generally, the sentiments, principles, and opinions of General Jackson, Proclamation and all: and yet it receives the honourable gentleman with the utmost complacency, though he be the very prince of nullifiers, and but lately regarded as the chiefest of sinners. To all appearance, the delight is mutual: they find him an able leader, he finds them complying followers. But, Sir, in all this movement he understands himself. He means to go ahead, and to take them along. He is in the engine-car; he controls the locomotive. His hand regulates the steam, to increase or retard the speed at his discretion. And, as to the occupants of the passenger-cars, Sir, they are as happy a set of gentlemen as one might desire to see of a Summer's day. They feel that they are in progress; they hope they shall not be run off the track; and, when they reach the end of their journey, they desire to be thankful! On the broad surface of the country, Sir, there is a spot called "The Hermitage." In that residence is an occupant very well known, and not a little remarkable both in person and character. Suppose, Sir, the occupant of the Hermitage were now to open that door, enter the Senate, walk forward, and look over the chamber to the seats on the other side. Be not frightened, gentlemen; it is but fancy's sketch. Suppose he should thus come in among us, Sir, and see into whose hands has fallen the chief support of that administration which was, in so great a degree, appointed by himself, and which he fondly relied on to maintain the principles of his If gentlemen were now to see his steady military step, his erect posture, his compressed lips, his firmly-knitted brow, and his eye full of fire, I cannot help thinking, Sir, they would all feel somewhat queer. There would be, I imagine, not a little awkward moving and shifting in their seats. They would expect soon to hear the roar of the lion, even if they did not feel his paw. own. DANIEL WEBSTER: 1838. 5 In December, 1832, when nullification was at its height, President Jackson issued a Proclamation, taking high ground for the Union, exposing the doctrines of the nullifiers, and forewarning them that their movement would be put down at whatever cost. This naturally produced a very bitter alienation between them and the President's friends. These two pieces are, to me, among Webster's happiest strains of good-humoured satire. DANIEL WEBSTER. MR. WEBSTER'S love of agriculture, of sports in the open air, of the outward world in starlight and storms, and sea and boundless wilderness, all displayed a man in whom the most various intercourse with the world, the longest career in strife and honours, the consciousness of intellectual supremacy, the coming-in of a wide fame, constantly enlarging, left as he was at first, natural, simple, manly, genial, kind. I have learned by evidence the most direct and satisfactory, that in the last months of his life the whole affectionateness of his nature - his consideration for others, his gentleness, his desire to make them happy and to see them happy-seemed to come out in more and more beautiful and habitual expression than ever before. The long day's public tasks were felt to be done; the cares, the uncertainties, the mental conflicts of high place were ended; and he came home to recover himself for the few years which he might still expect would be his, before he should go hence, to be here no more. And there, I am assured and fully believe, no unbecoming regrets pursued him; no discontent, as for injustice suffered or expectations unfulfilled; no self-reproach for any thing done or any thing omitted by himself; no irritation, no peevishness unworthy of his noble nature; but, instead, love and hope for his country, when she became the subject of conversation; and for all around him, the dearest and the most indifferent, for all breathing things about him, the overflow of the kindest heart growing in gentleness and benevolence; paternal, patriarchal affections, seeming to become more natural, warm, and communicative every hour. Softer and yet brighter grew the tints on the sky of parting day; and the last lingering rays, more even than the glories of noon, announced how divine was the source from which they proceeded; how incapable to be quenched; how certain to rise on a morning which no night should follow. Such a character was made to be loved. It was loved. Those who knew and saw it in its hour of calm-those who could repose on that soft green-loved him. His plain neighbours loved him ; and one said, when he was laid in his grave, "How lonesome the world seems!" Educated young men loved him. The ministers of the Gospel, the general intelligence of the country, the masses afar off, loved him. True, they had not found in his speeches, read by millions, so much adulation of the people; so much of the music which robs the public reason of itself; so many phrases of humanity and philanthropy: and some had told them he was lofty and cold, — solitary in his greatness: but every year they came nearer and nearer to him, and as they came nearer they loved him better; they heard how tender the son had been, the husband, the brother, the father, the friend, the neighbour; that he was plain, simple, natural, generous, hospitable, the heart larger than the brain; that he loved little children, and reverenced God, the Scriptures, the Sabbath-day, the Constitution, and the law; and their hearts clave to him. More truly of him than even of the great naval darling of England might it be said, that "his presence would set the church bells ringing, and give school-boys a holiday, — would bring children from school and old men from the chimney-corner, to gaze on him ere he died." The great and unavailing lamentation first revealed the deep place he had in the hearts of his countrymen. You are now to add to this his extraordinary power of influencing the convictions of others by speech, and you have completed the survey of the means of his greatness. And here again I begin by admiring an aggregate made up of excellences and triumphs ordinarily deemed incompatible. He spoke with consummate ability to the Bench, and yet exactly as, according to every sound canon of taste and ethics, the Bench ought to be addressed. He spoke with consummate ability to the jury, and yet exactly as, according to every sound canon, that totally different tribunal ought to be addressed. In the halls of Congress; before the people assembled for political discussion in masses; before audiences smaller and more select, assembled for some solemn commemoration of the past or of the dead; in each of these, again, his speech, of the first form of ability, was exactly adapted also to the critical proprieties of the place; each achieved, when delivered, the most instant and specific success of eloquence, some of them in a splendid and remarkable degree and yet, stranger still, when reduced to writing as they fell from his lips, they compose a body of reading, in many volumes, solid, clear, rich, and full of harmony, a classical and permanent political literature. And yet all these modes of his eloquence, exactly adapted each to its stage and its end, were stamped with his image and superscrip |